The Obama administration released a plan on Friday for how the Department of Homeland Security will deal with a shutdown, as Congressional leaders remain at an impasse over how to fund the agency. The Associated Press reports that airport security checkpoints, Secret Service, and border patrols are among the operations exempted from a shutdown. But those deemed “non-essential” workers would be furloughed. “Essential” workers must continue to work, but they won’t be paid until Congress finds an agreement to fund the agency. The House failed to approve a stop-gap measure on Friday night that would have extended the agency’s funding...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) slammed House Republicans Friday after lawmakers failed to pass a short-term bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which runs out of money at midnight. "The Republican Congress has shown that it simply cannot govern. Two months into the Republican Congress, we are already staring a Homeland Security shutdown square in the face, even as terrorists around the world threaten to strike America," the Nevada Democrat said in a statement after the House vote. The bill failed 203-224. More than 50 Republicans voted against the legislation, which would have funded the department...

A short-term funding measure to keep the Department of Homeland Security open (DHS) was defeated in the House on Friday in a stunning vote that could result in a partial government shutdown at midnight. The bill failed 203-224, with 51 Republicans voting against legislation that was set to fund the DHS and its associated agencies through March 19. Twelve Democrats voted for it. The vote is a humiliating defeat for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team, who had scrambled to bring the three-week funding bill to the floor ahead of the looming deadline. The next steps on the...

Amid heated allegations that he has allowed his agency to be a puppet for the White House, the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee next month. Tom Wheeler, who initially declined to appear before the panel this week, will testify on the morning of March 17, committee spokeswoman MJ Henshaw said. Wheeler is also scheduled to testify along with his four fellow commissioners the following day in the Senate Commerce Committee. Unlike that session, however, which will focus on general oversight and the FCC’s new net neutrality rules, the House...

The administration sent incorrect tax information to 800,000 people who have enrolled in ObamaCare, the administration announced Friday. Because of the mistake, tax credits were calculated either too high or too low, and officials are asking people to delay filing their taxes until the problem is corrected. Affected people are now being contacted by phone and email. The administration said that 50,000 of the people affected had already filed their taxes, and the government would now work with them to correct the problem. The error involves the "benchmark" health plan that is used as part of the formula for calculating...

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) president Grover Norquist has written a letter to several members of the NRA’s board of directors fervently denying allegations of his ties to Muslim Brotherhood leaders as “conspiracies.” Norquist is currently facing re-election for his position on the NRA’s board of directors, all while these accusations against him have come under renewed attention—and could dominate discussion of his NRA role in the coming weeks. In the letter obtained by Breitbart News, Norquist accuses Center for Security Policy (CSP) president Frank Gaffney, a former official in Ronald Reagan’s Pentagon, of being a “stalker” he has had...

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was captured by American soldiers in 2004 in Iraq Official documents reveal his job was 'Administrative Work (Secretary)' Held for 10 months...but then released as he was not considered a threat He has now gone on to become one of world's most wanted men The bloodthirsty leader of the Islamic State was once a secretary working in office admin, newly released documents have revealed. Brutal Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was captured by American soldiers in 2004 in Iraq, and records from the time have revealed his life before he turned to terror. The declassified documents show that al-Baghdadi...

Obama tried to counter the Paris Unity March, which his administration boycotted, with a seminar on “Countering Violent Extremism”. CVE continues to mean pandering to the Muslim Brotherhood and refusing to deal with Islamic terrorism. Obama is claiming that the solution is to teach the true peaceful nature of Islam while continuing to push the lie that the Chapel Hill killings targeted Muslims. Biden is cheerleading all that Muslim immigration. “I’m proud of the American record on culture and economic integration of not only our Muslim communities but African communities, Asian communities, Hispanic communities,” Biden said. “And the wave still...

In addition to murdering innocent civilians and producing appalling propaganda videos, the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL) has reportedly developed some creative and effective recruiting techniques.

(snip) Tonight, she joined Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s The Situation Room and attempted to clarify her point. “I’m not the first person to say something like this,” Harf said. “Military commanders that we’ve had throughout many years here fighting this war on terrorism have said the exact same thing, that in the short term when there’s a threat like ISIL. We’ll take direct military action against these terrorists. We have done that. We are doing that in Iraq and Syria. But longer term, we have to look at how we combat the conditions that can lead people to turn to...

The United States has made significant gains against terrorism. We've decimated the core al Qaeda leadership, strengthened homeland security and worked to prevent another large-scale attack like 9/11. At the same time, the threat has evolved. The al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen actively plots against us. Since 9/11, terrorists have murdered U.S. citizens overseas, including in the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Here in the United States, Americans have been killed at Ft. Hood and during the Boston Marathon. (snip) We do not yet know why three young people, who were Muslim Americans, were brutally killed in Chapel Hill, N.C. But...

Attorney General Eric Holder called out Fox News yesterday for fixating on the Obama’s administraton’s terminology for ISIS. “If Fox didn’t talk about this, they would have nothing else to talk about, it seems to me,” said at the National Press Club. (snip) “They want to kill us and yet the Attorney General, chief law enforcement officer for the United States of America, is bugged by the fact that Fox brings up the accurate point they are Islamic extremists, let’s call it Islamic extremism,” Steve Doocy said. “Obviously this administration talks tougher about Fox News than they do about ISIS,...

In a bid to finance its operations, the Islamic State group might be harvesting human organs, Iraq’s ambassador to the U.N. told the intergovernmental organization on Tuesday, and asked the Security Council to investigate the allegations. In the past few weeks, authorities have discovered bodies with surgical incisions and missing kidneys or other organs in several shallow mass graves, leading many to believe that the extremist group might be harvesting these organs to fund its caliphate, Mohamed Alhakim, the Iraqi envoy to the U.N., reportedly said. “We have bodies. Come and examine them,” The Associated Press (AP) quoted Alhakim as...

EXCERPT In this case, Biden said at the ceremony today he has known Ash Carter for years and, when you watch the full video (click above), it doesn't appear entirely obvious that he makes Stephanie Carter uncomfortable. In fact, she nods her head in agreement after Biden talks to her. If you watch for more than a Vine's-length, the ceremony goes on normally after the whisper seen 'round the web.

It didn’t take long for Tweeters to react to that photo of Vice President Joe Biden canoodling with the wife on Defense Secretary Ashton Carter at Carter’s swearing in a little earlier today. Check out some of the funnier fake captions and reactions to what is the latest in an ongoing series of photographers catching Mr. Biden getting just a little too “handsy” with a member of the opposite sex:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is revamping its effort to counter the Islamic State’s propaganda machine, acknowledging that the terrorist group has been far more effective in attracting new recruits, financing and global notoriety than the United States and its allies have been in thwarting it. At the heart of the plan is expanding a tiny State Department agency, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, to harness all the existing attempts at countermessaging by much larger federal departments, including the Pentagon, Homeland Security and intelligence agencies. (snip) The new director will be Rashad Hussain, a Muslim American who has close...

David Carr, a writer who wriggled away from the demon of drug addiction to become an unlikely name-brand media columnist at The New York Times, and the star of a documentary about the newspaper, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 58. Mr. Carr collapsed in the Times newsroom, where he was found shortly before 9 p.m. He was taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Earlier in the evening, he moderated a panel discussion about the film “Citizenfour” with its principal subject, Edward J. Snowden; the film’s director, Laura Poitras; and Glenn Greenwald, a journalist.

Ethan Czahor’s tweets began disappearing today after news broke Monday that he had been hired by Jeb Bush. Czahor resigned Tuesday. Time magazine reported on Monday that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has hired Ethan Czahor, a Santa Monica-based techie who co-founded Hipster.com, to be chief technology officer for his political action committee, Right to Rise.

Jeb Bush, a rumored 2016 Republican presidential candidate, just decided to publish hundreds of thousands of emails sent to him during his time as governor of Florida. On its face it seems like a great idea in the name of transparency, but there's one huge problem: neither Bush nor those who facilitated the publication of the records, including the state government, decided to redact potentially sensitive personal information from them. "In the spirit of transparency, I am posting the emails of my governorship here," a note on Bush's website says. "Some are funny; some are serious; some I wrote in...

Already under fire from Iraq War veterans for making up events, NBC is taking new flak today from former military brass over a correspondent’s claim that sniper hero Chris Kyle was a “racist” on “killing sprees” while protecting troops in Iraq. Some 22 retired generals and admirals, including a former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, joined with dozens of other officers and the press watchdog Media Research Center in a letter to demand an apology from NBC parent Comcast after the network refused to acknowledge the comments. Kyle, the subject of the hit movie “American Sniper,” said a letter...

The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups. Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations. The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury...

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Wednesday's program offered a clarification of the events that led to his news team being protected in Iraq by the Third Infantry in 2003 — and his recent honoring of one of the Army vets who was there. (snip) Williams and his team were actually in one of the aircraft following a Chinook helicopter that was hit. In fact, in the original Dateline special on the incident, Williams even says, "On the ground we learn the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky," acknowledging he was not in the...

Judging from her e-mails, Jill Kelley was star-struck by the big-name military commanders rotating between the war zones in the Middle East and her home town of Tampa. And they were equally smitten with her. (snip) Although Kelley was never accused of wrongdoing, her name and her unusual niche in the national-security establishment were quickly publicized by the news media. In 2013, she sued the FBI and the Defense Department, asserting that her privacy rights had been violated by officials who leaked her name and personal information to reporters. The federal government has sought to dismiss the case, but a...

Michelle Obama did not look happy today when she had to cut short her visit to India to accompany her husband on a trip to a country where women aren't even allowed to drive cars. The First Lady bowed and beamed as she boarded Air Force One in New Dehli on Tuesday, but by the time she landed in Saudi Arabia a few hours later, she had traded her floral dress for a more conservative long-sleeved jacket and slacks - as well as a new scorned expression. In pictures at the airport and Egra Palace, Mrs Obama pursed her lips...

(Reuters) - No sooner had Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced his resignation than his country's tenuous political fabric began to disintegrate. Provinces across a nation barely held together by a complex web of tribal and religious alliances said they would no longer take military commands from Sanaa after the Iranian-allied Shi'ite Houthi group besieged Hadi's home and palace this week. The emerging fragmentation of the Arabian Peninsula country has sparked fears of the "Somalization" of a state which is home to a revitalized al Qaeda insurgency as well as a neighbor to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia. For Washington,...

Jeff Greene made a fortune betting against sub-prime mortgage securities He said: 'America's lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted' Comments came as Greene flew into Switzerland on private jet with wife, children and two nannies in tow Mr Greene is currently in the process of selling his $195million Beverly Hills estate - it is the most expensive property currently on the U.S. market He married his 19-years younger wife in 2007 and they spend their time between their estates in Malibu, the Hamptons and Palm Beach A U.S. billionaire who made his fortune betting against...

President Obama will not meet with Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister’s visit to the United States in March, a White House official said Thursday. "As a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country," National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a statement. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had originally invited Netanyahu to speak early next month, but the Israeli leader asked to push back the address to coincide with...

Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) surprise invitation to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu address Congress was "inappropriate," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi charged Thursday The California Democrat said that, not only did Boehner break congressional protocol by not consulting with Democratic leaders about the invitation, but the timing of the speech — coming just a few weeks ahead of Israel's contentious national elections — hints that politics are at play. "It's out of the ordinary that the Speaker would decide that he would be inviting people to a joint session without any bipartisan consultation," Pelosi said Thursday during her weekly...

(Reuters) - Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was expected to yield to demands on Wednesday for constitutional change and power sharing with Houthi rebels who took up positions outside his home after defeating his guards in two days of battle. Gulf neighbors denounced what they described as a coup in Yemen, although both the Houthis and some of the president's allies denied that he had been overthrown. A source close to the president said Hadi had met an official of the Shi'ite Muslim rebel group and would soon issue decrees resolving all differences. The source denied Hadi was under house...

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Shiite rebels in control of Yemen's capital now hold the country's president "captive" at his home, his aides said Wednesday, putting in question who actually rules the Arab world's most-impoverished nation. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi "cannot leave his house" after Houthi rebels removed his guards and deployed their own fighters there Wednesday, one aide said. Another described the country being at the "point of no return." Hadi can't resign as president as the Houthis have threatened to prosecute him, that aide said. The two aides spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to...

The White House has released a couple of excerpts of the president's address to the nation. Here's the second: “But I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one...

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A fire that burned the Eric Garner memorial after a vigil led by the Rev. Al Sharpton on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was an accident, according to the city Fire Department. Eric Garner's relatives, including daughter Erica Garner and step-father Benjamin Carr, have said that the fire was intentionally set.

(CNN)Unknown assailants fired shots Monday night at a U.S. Embassy vehicle in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, the U.S. Embassy said, at the end of a day marked by heavy fighting around the presidential palace. Nine people were killed and 67 others injured Monday in the fighting between government forces and Houthi militants, Yemen's Health Ministry said, before the sides agreed to a ceasefire. The U.S. Embassy said Tuesday the shooters fired first into the air and then turned the guns on its vehicle. The vehicle carried U.S. diplomatic personnel and was at a checkpoint near the embassy. No injuries were reported....

Seth Rogen took quite a bit of heat for this tweet about Â“American SniperÂ”: Seth RogenVerified account â€Ź@Sethrogen American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that's showing in the third act of Inglorious Basterds. 11:05 AM - 18 Jan 2015 Apparently, he finally started feeling the burn. This afternoon, heÂ’s trying to walk it back: Seth RogenVerified account â€Ź@Sethrogen I just said something "kinda reminded" me of something else. I actually liked American Sniper. It just reminded me of the Tarantino scene. 2:55 PM - 19 Jan 2015 Seth RogenVerified account â€Ź@Sethrogen I wasn't comparing the two. Big...

EXCERPT Good-naturedly referencing his friend Andrew Young—who marched with King and is prominent in the film—early in his speech, Clinton told the sold-out crowd, “I saw Andy earlier today and I said, ‘Andy, I just watched Selma. Were you ever that thin?’ (eliciting thunderous laughter) and he said yes, he was, that they were dodging so many bullets in droves they all used to be thin.” As he continued to speak, he got decidedly more serious. “If you haven’t yet, go see the movie Selma,” he insisted, “and you will see the enormous pressures imposed on the King family and...

The United States must "repair the breach" between police and the communities they serve, Vice President Biden argued Monday during a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day speech. "We need to agree in this nation on two basic statements of truth," Biden said during a speech to the Organization of Minority Women in Delaware. "Cops have a right to go home at night to see their families. And two, all minorities, no matter what their neighborhood, have a right to be treated with respect and with dignity. All life matters." In the wake of police killings of unarmed suspects in Ferguson,...

As President Barack Obama addressed the nation regarding national cyber security efforts, hackers claiming to represent the Islamic State (IS) took over the Twitter account of the Pentagon division in charge of the Middle East. Hackers with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, posted links on U.S. Central Command’s official Twitter page to what it claimed was “confidential data from your mobile devices.” “ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now,” said one tweet sent from CENTCOM’s account.

Attorney General Eric Holder is in Paris this week to attend a meeting on fighting terrorism, but did not participate in a march with world leaders Sunday to honor the 17 people killed last week in France. More than 40 world leaders marched arm in arm through Paris to rally for unity and freedom of expression and to honor the victims of the three days of terrorist attacks. The leaders headed a demonstration of at least tens of thousands of people who converged on the capital after three gunmen last week attacked a newspaper office, kosher supermarket and police. Among...

Attorney General Eric Holder said the United States is at war with terrorists who pervert the Muslim faith in order to justify violence. Asked on ABC's "This Week" if the U.S. is at war with "radical Islam," Holder said the country is at war "with those who would commit terrorist attacks and who would corrupt the Islamic faith … to try to justify their terrorist actions." "That's who we are at war with," Holder said. "We are determined to take the fight to them to prevent them from engaging in these kinds of activities." The exchange with "This Week" host...

The Army plans to send a brigade of tanks and fighting vehicles into Europe by the end of this year, according to the top Army commander in the region. More than 150 tanks and fighting vehicles will go to Germany and other countries in Europe as part of the Army’s plan to bolster its presence on the continent. The shift comes as the war in Afghanistan winds down and more resources and troops are available for service in Europe. “By the end of 2015, we will have an entire heavy brigade combat team of equipment — that’s enough tanks and...

On his MSNBC show Thursday, host Chris Hayes ran a segment about an attempted bombing which took place outside of the building housing the Colorado Springs NAACP that used images from a completely unrelated incident which occurred in France. The FBI and ATF are investigating the incident in which a homemade explosive was placed next to a gas can outside of the Colorado Springs building which houses the NAACP office, as well as a barber shop. The explosive was on the side of the building near the barber shop, but authorities are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime...

Attorney General Eric Holder is flying off to Paris this weekend for a meeting with the French Minister of Interior in the aftermath of a violent terrorist attack in which 12 people were killed and 11 wounded at the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo, which printed cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Holder, who will meet with French officials on counter-terrorism, is a big opponent of “Islamophobia” against Muslims. “There can be no ‘us’ or ‘them’ among Americans,” Holder said at a 2010 dinner held by the California-based group Muslim Advocates. “And I believe that law enforcement has an obligation to ensure...

After defeating a rebellion by 25 conservative Republicans this week, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday declared himself “the most anti-establishment Speaker” in history. “During my years here when I voted, I had the eighth-most conservative voting record in the Congress, and it does pain me to be described as spineless or a squish,” Boehner told reporters. “But what pains me the most is when they describe me as the establishment. “I’m the most anti-establishment Speaker we’ve ever had. "Who was the guy who got rid of earmarks? Me. Who's the guy who believes in regular order? Me," Boehner continued....

A routine procedural vote on Thursday could become the vehicle for a conservative protest against House GOP leadership for punishing lawmakers who voted against Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) this week. Before voting on legislation requiring only a simple majority to pass, the House must adopt a "rule" that sets parameters for floor debate. Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas), one of the 25 Republicans who opposed Boehner's bid for a third term as Speaker, urged Republicans to vote against the rule until the two former members of the House Rules Committee are reinstated. "Two members taken off Rules Cmte yesterday after voting...